Chris Williams is suddenly as animated as Bart, Homer, or any of the Simpsons. "Things like this festival are vital for the cultural development of this area," he declares.

Chris is talking about Animex, the world renowned, Teesside University orchestrated, animation extravaganza that gets into full swing in Middlesbrough tomorrow.

"Things like the Baltic at Gateshead are fantastic, but how many lads from the estates will get the chance to see it?" he says.

"People here on Teesside do not have any self worth any more. Maybe that's the underlying problem and I guess it's understandable.

"You need to have something to let people know you can achieve if you have drive and ambition. And that's what we are doing with Animex."

The 2003 version began on Saturday with the opening of an exhibition in Middlesbrough's Cleveland Centre. From tomorrow, it features events all around the town, from the UGC cinema, to pubs, cafes, walls and streets, even at the Riverside stadium.

It climaxes on Thursday and Friday with a two-day conference at the university, when Nancy Cartwright - the voice of Bart Simpson - is one of the star guests.

Animex only began three years ago and nobody realised how quickly it would take off.

"When I first raised the idea, I was scoffed at," says Chris, a principal lecturer at the university and now festival director.

"I was told 'These things are a lot of work and invariably unsuccessful. Are you sure you want to do it?'

"I just said 'Yes, I want to give it a go because I think there's somewhere we can do here,' and it has just gone beserk.

"In 2000, it was a one-day event. We had a budget of £2,000 and said to people 'Come up and we will pay your train fare.'

"This year, people from New Zealand, the States, UK, big names, Oscar nominated people are coming. Now we have people ringing us up asking if they can come and do it.

"The university has put in a lot more financial support because it sees in as important to the success of the town.

"The council is backing us with more time and effort, and we have sponsorship from people who want to help make it one of the biggest in the world - which, from my point of view, is exciting and what I want to hear.

"It has just grown far beyond my expectations but I want it to be bigger. I want the people of the town to take it up. I want them to come to the conference, go to the screenings at UGC."

Animex is clearly helping to put the university, Middlesbrough and Teesside on the world map.

And Chris confesses he is obsessed with seeing other people and other organisations take the same road.

"I applaud things like Middlesbrough Music Live which attracted audiences of more than 32,000 in 2002, and people, for bucking trends. If he can bring people up from London to shop in his store, so should others.

"I think people like him should be held up like beacons. It shows what can be done if you have drive, ambition and determination.

"The council should be doing everything they can to persuade people with talent to stay here. But they have to recognise the talent first."

And that is not always easy as Chris, now 35, knows from his own life. "I had a chequered education career - it wasn't plain sailing," he says.

"I went to school at what is now Billingham campus, then Bede. Then I went to Stoke to study accountancy.

"I just wanted to do the student thing. I had a great time and did a lot of partying but didn't do a great deal of working."

Keen to get into television, he thought a route might be via industrial design, so signed up for the degree course at Teesside University.

With the doors still closed, he tried to sign on for a higher MSc but was rejected because he had no computing qualifications.

He set out to get them by working harder than ever before. "I just dropped everything and had no social life." He succeeded, was taken on and got a distinction.

Chris joined a large animation company in London, then a small one in Gateshead. "But we produced the biggest computer game of the time, Destruction Derby II, and it achieved one of my ambitions - to see something I had done on the shelf in the shops."

Tempted back to Teesside University by a former tutor, he signed on as a lecturer in 1996.

"Throughout my time here, I have been trying to push things," he says. "We have introduced a whole range of new courses and staff in this area have gone from eight or nine lecturers to over 30 teaching animation related courses.

"It's one of the biggest areas of recruitment for the university. We have a good reputation for teaching and lots of our graduates go on to work for the biggest companies in the world, but I don't think we shout about it enough.

"I don't think we appreciate what we do and have here. I have travelled around and we have some of the best facilities in the UK, Europe and probably the world."

Chris was recently in Canada at Sheridan College, near Toronto, which he says is one of the best in the world for teaching animation.

He said: "They have moved slowly from animation into computer graphics. We have come from the opposite end of the spectrum, in that computer graphics here are rooted in computer science.

"Now we have moved into arts based areas and gone back into traditional animation. The computer just replaces paint and brush.

"We try to give students a grounding in animation so they know what to do before they hit the keyboards and we are light years away from where we were when I was a student.

"In terms of teaching, we are on a par with Sheridan but in terms of equipment they have more.

"We are looking at what they have got for our Digital City project. We are planning this for the corner of Southfield Road and Woodlands Road and I am involved in it.

"We are hoping to persuade companies to relocate here and try and get people from the community into digital media.

"We can offer small enterprises the TV facilities they would have to rent in London, Leeds or Newcastle. If it comes off as we hope it will, I think that's something else that will help the town become a bit self sufficient."

Chris and his wife Jane, a nursery nurse, have two boys, Zachary, who is nearly five, and Charlie, three.

"They are great. I love them and think this is a perfect place to bring youngsters up. I am a Billingham lad, still live in Billingham, and it winds me up when people run this area down.

"I have moved away and come back. Where else are you five minutes from the beach, moors and facilities, cracking night life which regularly features on radio, a good football team and good sports facilities?

"I have lived in London and I fail to see the attraction. I have friends down there and they want to move back here because they know I can say 'I've got a garden, I've got a car that I can drive. I live seven miles from work and it takes me ten minutes to drive in on a morning.

"The financial rewards are not as great here but in relative terms, life is so much better.

"People do not look at what is here. They dismiss it without trying it, and that's a shame because they are missing out on so much."